Microsoft boss Satya Nadella called last week's Black Ops 6 launch the “biggest Call of Duty launch ever,” saying its arrival set a record for “Game Pass subscriber additions on the day of the game.” launch”.
News of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6's success came amid Microsoft's fiscal 2025 first-quarter financial earnings report, in which the company once again reported notable gains in gaming revenue, an increase 43 percent year over year. This comes on top of a 61 percent year-over-year increase in Xbox content and services revenue, although the growth was primarily a result of Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. By contrast, the company's Xbox hardware revenue has continued to decline, this time by 29 percent year over year.
Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard also helped deliver more good news for investors, thanks to the recent arrival of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. While opening weekend numbers saw physical sales of Black Ops 6 up 10 percent in the UK compared to Modern Warfare 3, likely due to its day-one appearance on Game Pass, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella trumpeted the launch today on an earnings conference call, calling Black Ops 6 the “biggest Call of Duty release ever.”